Wrong hoop, wrong call

One of the things you never want to get at the higher level of sports is an explanation from a game official or league office that basically amounts to a “my bad”.

So when the UConn men get the following Tuesday night, well, as if the start of 2013 wasn’t bad enough with a Marquette player jamming in a three at the buzzer to send the game into overtime …

Official’s Statement On Play At Beginning Of Overtime

“Based on rule five, section one, article three, when the official permits a team to go in the wrong direction, and then the error is discovered, all activity and time consumed shall count as though each team had gone in the proper direction. Play is then resumed with each team going in the proper direction.

“The players went in the wrong direction (tonight). Because we allowed that to happen, the only thing that was wrong is there was a goaltend on the play. We should have scored the goaltend and give Connecticut two points for that.

“You have no team control after that, because you have a shot, so now you go to the alternating possession arrow. Because there is no team control at that point and then Marquette gets the ball and you head them all in the right direction.”

Karl Hess BIG EAST Official

Now, Kevin Ollie took the high road:

“That play did not cost us the game.”

But you never know if scoring the first bucket could get some momentum going your way. At least the messup didn’t help the Huskies.

Interestingly, many of the Republican-American Athletes of the Week through the years have described their most embarrassing sports moment as scoring a hoop in the wrong basket.

Hess, by the way, has already worked in 17 states this season and is, as usual, among the national leaders in technical fouls. If Jim Calhoun was still the coach at UConn, and the above happened with Hess on the job … WOW!

Final note: Mike Stuart, who was also on the game, worked in the NCAA championship game last spring between Kansas and Kentucky.